Monday, September 19, 2005

Every so often, a survey shows that most / a big chunk of the population knows little about the Holocaust, and Jewish groups are up in arms at the thought that the Shoah might be 'forgotten.'I've written here before about this being a symptom of a larger problem in society -- the demise of study of history in general.If you really want an insight into how deep this problem runs, however, take a look at this story from Ha'aretz:

The French satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaine reported in its September 14th issue that during the visit of French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy to the new Holocaust museum in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem on September 8, he asked - while perusing maps of European sites where Jewish communities had been destroyed - whether British Jews were not also murdered. Needless to say, Douste-Blazy's question was met by his hosts with amazement. "But Monsieur le minister," Le Canard quoted the ensuing conversation, "England was never conquered by the Nazis during World War II." The minister apparently was not content with this answer, which, according to the magazine, was given by the museum curator, and persisted, asking: "Yes, but were there no Jews who were deported from England?" ... According to an investigation by Haaretz on Sunday, the event actually occurred as described.

Perhaps -- apart from the astounding ignorance on display here -- the fact that he associates the deportation of the Jews with host populations rather than the Nazi occupiers also shows something.